1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication systems and, in particular, to an apparatus and method for delivering customized advertisements within interactive communications systems.
2. Background
Recently, a wide range of interactive devices have been developed to provide information to consumers. These interactive devices include, for example, computers connected to various computer on-line services, interactive kiosks, interactive television systems and the like. In particular, the popularity of computer on-line services has grown immensely in popularity over the last decade.
Computer on-line services are provided by a wide variety of different companies. In general, most computer on-line services are accessed via the Internet. The Internet is a global network of computers. The structure of the Internet is a network backbone with networks branching from the backbone. These branches, in turn, have networks branching from them, and so on. Routers move information packets from network to network, until the information packets reach their destination. For a more detailed description of the structure and operation of the Internet, please refer to "The Internet Complete Reference," by Harley Hahn and Rick Stout, published by McGraw-Hill, 1994.
One popular part of the Internet is the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web contains computers which display graphical and textual information. Computers which provide information on the World Wide Web are typically called "websites." A website is defined by an Internet address which has an associated electronic page, often called a "home page." Generally, a home page is an electronic document which organizes the presentation of text, graphical images, audio and video into a desired display. These websites are operated by a wide variety of entities which are typically called "content providers."
A user may access the Internet using a home personal computer (PC) equipped with a conventional modem. Special interface software is installed within the PC so that when the user wishes to access the Internet, an attached modem is automatically instructed to dial the telephone number associated with the local Internet host server. The user can then access information at any address accessible over the Internet. Two well-known software interfaces, for example, are the Netscape Navigator developed by Netscape, Inc. and the Microsoft Internet Explorer developed by Microsoft Corporation.
Information exchanged over the Internet is typically encoded in HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML) format. The HTML format is a scripting language which is used to generate the home pages for different content providers. In this setting, a content provider is an individual or company that places information (content) on the Internet so that it can be accessed by others. As is well known in the art, the HTML format is a set of conventions for marking different portions of a document so that each portion appears in a distinctive format. For example, the HTML format identifies or "tags" portions of a document to identify different categories of text (e.g., the title, header, body text, etc.). When a web browser accesses a HTML document, the web browser reads the embedded tags in the document so it appears formatted in the specified manner.
A HTML document can also include hyper-links which allow a user to move from one document to another document on the Internet. A hyper-link is an underlined or otherwise emphasized portion of text which, when selected using an input device such as a mouse, activates a software connection module which allows the user to jump between documents (i.e., within the same website or to other websites). Hyper-links are well known in the art, and are sometimes referred to as anchors.
Although the Internet and the World Wide Web, together with other interactive devices, are used widely to share information among different users, the full range of possibilities for use of these interactive computer services have not yet been fully developed.
As the popularity of the Internet and the World Wide Web has increased over the years, more companies are trying to find ways of promoting their product in a cost-effective manner. Thus, there has been a tremendous proliferation of corporate advertising across the Internet. For example, some companies such as Yahoo Corporation offer free services, such as the ability to search for particular sites on the Internet, but post advertising messages to consumers to help offset the cost of their service. Unfortunately, there is so far no effective way of targeting particular advertisements to those consumers most likely to use the product or service being offered. Therefore, a tremendous amount of advertising is wasted on promoting goods or services to an improper audience. As the number of people accessing the Internet increases, it will become more important to specifically target advertising to those individuals most likely to purchase the goods or services being offered. It will also be important for advertisers to know how effective a particular ad has become by tracking the responses of individual consumers. Unfortunately, there is currently no convenient mechanism for predetermining which users might be interested in a particular category of advertised goods or services. There is also no current method for tracking consumer responses to particular advertisements.